Bye-bye to pirate bar

Smalley's Caribbean Barbeque and Pirate Bar, a Stillwater fixture for nearly a decade, closed its doors last week.

The restaurant, which once appeared on the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," had struggled in recent years, owner Tim McKee said, so he and chef Shawn Smalley made the decision to move on.

"It has been reported that we're being forced out, and I want to clarify that's not the case," said McKee, who also owns Lowertown's Octo Fishbar in St. Paul.

"Stillwater is just a really difficult environment to run a restaurant in, and it wasn't working for us."

Smalley's debuted in 2008, touting American takes on Caribbean barbecue — such as jerk chicken, brisket and wings — and made a name for itself for bringing a heat to its sauces that bellied the Midwest norm. "We were doing something that no one else, in our minds, had done," McKee said. "It was kind of a unique thing."

McKee and Smalley started making the food that would end up on the menu while working together at the former La Belle Vie (which began in Stillwater in 1998 before moving to Minneapolis in 2005; it closed in 2015), and serving it to the staff.

Soon, they decided that it was worth a landing spot of its own. "It was refreshing when we first started, being known for high-end cuisine, to do something dive-bar style with plastic baskets and paper," McKee said. "I really loved that."